


Heroes

by Onlymostydead



Category: X-Ray & Vav (Cartoon)
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Implied/Referenced Alcoholism, M/M, villain!X-Ray
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 16:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8335138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onlymostydead/pseuds/Onlymostydead
Summary: Everyone leaves





	

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want this to be my first X-Ray and Vav fic, but here we are.

Everyone will leave you.

It doesn't really after how good you are, how well you do, or how hard you try to please everyone. Everyone will inevitably leave, and that was something Ray had to learn at a young age.

His mother in tears as she explained, "Mijo, he's not coming back."

If you asked anyone they would have said that he didn't even try. Nothing could have been further from the truth.  
Ray fought every single day to be better, to be the better man. Because when you're seven and you have something to prove nothing can get in your way. In his mind he was standing up to them. Every time he was shoved into a locker, or dumped in a trash can that was just a lost battle. Every fight in the hallways would matter someday, even if he was the one in detention now.  
Even superheroes lost battles.  
He really did try his best in school, even if it wasn't great by other people's standards. There is a reason a C is the average grade, after all. There are people who fall on either side, but he was passing.  
So what was the problem?  
His mother spent her days either working or locked up in her room, mourning what she had lost. Ray quickly learned that she wasn't worth pleasing. She would trade him for his father in the blink of an eye if given the chance. His name was a grim reminder of what she lost, she wouldn't even say it most days.  
The other people he tried to please thought nothing of him, a scrappy little kid with a crooked smile and taped up glasses.

He really did try.  
And Gavin...

Gavin came along and made it look so damn easy, his smiles never falter, and he never failed to stand up for anyone else. They used to joke that Ray was his selfishness, because Gavin didn't have any. He was good just for the sake of it.  
His grades were always stellar, top of the class- if not than close.  
And people loved Gavin.  
Ray was never sure what it was that made him so damn magnetic- the accent, the dumb ideas, his laugh... Or was it the way his eyes sparkle when he has an idea, all of the careful thought he puts into those dumb plans, the way he jumps at shadows...  
He never did figure that one out. For someone so bold, so courageously ready to help others he sure did run a lot. Skittish, almost.  
But despite that everyone always loved him.  
He was the happy one, the agreeable one, the selfless one.  
And he made it look so, so easy.  
So why wasn't it? Why was Vav excelling while he just fell behind?  
His mother used to say he just wasn't made like Gav was, so what was he made for?  
Falling in love, and falling hard when they leave?  
Or being the one who leaves?

Because everyone leaves.

It doesn't matter how good you are, it doesn't matter how tight you hold them.

That was something X-Ray learned at a young age.

Vav, the only person who ever believed in him. The person he relied so much on, who stayed with him no matter what happened, no matter what he did. The one who was always there to talk him down, or help him clean up his broken pieces.  
Vav, his favorite person, left him.

He knew, inside that he shouldn't have gotten so attached.  
Because now he's the one who spends every hour he can working, or locked up in his room drinking, mourning what he lost. No one was there for him now but a dumb rock, just like that loser had said.  
And he would trade it for Gavin in the blink of an eye.

***

Now, now X-Ray can see.  
He can see all along that he was meant to be alone. Vav left, so what? His parents left sooner.   
His dad before he could remember.  
His mom for all of those absent years when she couldn't have cared less.  
Really though, he was the one who left her. Slowly at first, as a teen he had pulled away as he had felt so unwanted. As an adult he had relied on her so heavily, yet the walls he had built up were no match for her attempts to tear them down.  
No one loves him because he was unloveable. Even as a hero people doubted, they doubted his intent, his faithfulness, whether or not he should even be their hero. Now, he knows they were right. The city was nothing, the fame was nothing because it was built on silly things.  
A hero may be sung in the streets after a great victory, but they are forgotten in the ages to come.

No, his place was never as a hero.  
Heroes were meant to be lovable, after all. Heroes were good, kind and strong. Heroes were a pretty face you could see and have hope, noble intent and selflessness.   
No, Ray was never meant to be those things.

But Vav was.

Vav always found it so effortless to be the good guy, to be strong for others even when he was afraid. He never expected in return, he just gave. He had never experienced the lack that always made him crave more. He was a beautiful thing, a symbol of justice for the city.   
But he was smart. Smart enough to know when he needed to run away. Smart enough to know when to get away from X-Ray, before he even knew it. Gavin had been smart enough to know that Ray wasn't made to be a hero, but it wasn't in his nature to deny him. He only gave and gave, even if he himself didn't have.  
He didn't leave Ray when he knew he couldn't be a hero. He couldn't have because that was at the very beginning.  
He left when X-Ray began to realize.   
He left when he realized what X-Ray would become, now with the power in his grasp.

Heroes pass quickly out of memory, but a truly fearsome villain?  
One that is passionate, angry, hateful, selfish, needy, and not smart enough to realize the errors of his ways?  
That type of villain never passed from memory. That figure would always be there, his mark burned into the minds of the people.

He would never be forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love, you can find me on Tumblr at Supertinydom <3


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